


Safe

by orphan_account



Category: Cinderella 2015
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 19:38:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5510495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kit has a nightmare, but he's not alone when he wakes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safe

Kit had been a boy of six and ten when he first saw the sheer and utter horror that was war, the horrendous slaughter and bloodshed further marring his already cynical view on the world. Despite being so cheerful outwardly, he had not been so merry and dutiful internally. He did not have the makings of a prince, but he had kept that concealed as bests he could and when war came he obeyed his fathers orders as a good son and loyal subject ought to. 

Twelve years on, he had again returned to the battlefield, this time a king, a husband and a father, his very character brightened by the new life. And yet, with the gunfire and the clamour of steel, his opinion of the world and human decency were twisted and reverted to the morbid musings of a survivor. A survivor with survivors guilt.

Following his second war, there after dubbed ‘the Last War’ from the ensuing bout of optimism on the peoples behalf, Kit would remember, forever, watching a young boy die. A bullet to the shoulder, but it did not kill him immediately and as his comrades fought on he slowly bled to death on the ground, swallowed by mud and the pathetic reasoning behind human conflict. Younger than Kit had been in his first battle, too young to have known true love or the joy of a future. Sometimes he wondered if his mother and father had cried, or if he had none such things to boast of.

He had not reached out to him, despite what this distorted vision he now saw claimed, though he had imagined in that instant him doing so. Leaning down, not caring for the gunfire or shrieks of the horses and the cries of war and the unsheathing of swords, simply trying to comfort the boy as he died. He died for him, the boy had died because Kit had asked him, and thousands like him, to do so, and he could not bring himself to give up his own natural instincts to run and hide and defend himself to bring comfort to him in his last agonising moments. He had died alone in the dirt and the blood, but Kit now held him as though he was there, and the small boy coughed ragged breaths, pleading with any divine being that would listen to spare his life. The boy had been born to a family, dead or alive he had a father and a mother, no matter where they were. It could just have easily been his own son, his own child that struggled for life amid the grotesque scenes of carnage. Perhaps he had known a sweetheart, one that had presented him with a kiss on the cheek and the promise to marry him, accompanied by a blush, when he returned. 

And then it was Ella in his arms, Ella in the blood-soaked clothes with a hole in her shoulder where the bullet had blown apart the shoulder, Ella’s tears that cleansed the mud stained face and Ella’s voice that spoke. 

“Please,” Such a simple, achingly painful world that caused so much damage and injury in Kit’s fragile, loving heart, “please, it hurts.” 

He had screamed, yes, but his words had been indistinguishable between a legible sentence and gibberish, the nonsense yells of someone gripped by panic. Kit was sitting up in bed before he knew it, gasping for air as a familiar body stroked his hair, pulling him closer. He knew who it was, but he still flinched when he saw her, as though she were but a figment of his imagination, and in reality she was a shred of a spirit, devoid of a body or life. 

“I’m here.” She kept repeating in her musical voice, the voice that had never failed to caused his heart to skip a beat and his head to begin to float above the clouds. “I’ll always be here.” She noticed his reaction to her, and if her curiosity was piqued she kept it to herself, instead resting her head on his shoulder and attempting to calm him as best as she could. “My Kit.” Words she had needed to hear when she suffered from nightmares, but not necessarily the ones he needed. Her voice was soothing enough, however. 

Kit was disorientated and dizzy, but she had succeeded in soothing him and so soon lay down again, mind plagued by the image of his love begging for him to stop the pain of death. Breathe, breathe and blink. The warm body of his wife follow him, curled against his side as a soft reminder that she was here, that her words were non-negotiable and she would, indeed, always be with him. 

“Would you tell me if I asked you to?” She finally breached the silence, quiet and fading as her voice had been in his nightmare. His blue eyes, wide and filled with fear, were answer enough, even if they left her undecided. He would tell her, and tell her true, if she asked, but he did not wish to share. At all, apparently, and Ella had a small inkling of why, though she did not press him. 

“I love you more than you could ever know.” He finally whispered, readily moulding into her hold and she kissed his cheek, knowing that she felt the exact same. 

“Well, I’m not going anywhere, Mister Kit.” She declared almost inaudibly. “I’m safe.”


End file.
